Thread by @chrischirp

THREAD:
It's tiring to be attacked as if I (and others) am an "extremist" on covid or with suggestions that I'm a mouthpiece for others... when actually I'm very mainstream and it's UK policy that isn't. 1/10

The government's science advisors, SAGE, have literally just warned that we are risking a rough winter through not implementing simple mitigations now
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl… 2/10

The British Medical Assocation have this week highlighted the ongoing burden of Covid on an NHS that is understaffed, underfunded and exhausted.

bma.org.uk/what-we-do/ann… 3/10

Both the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the European equivalent, ECDC, have emphasised the need for vaccination of teens *and* layered protections in schools.

We're one of the countries doing the *least* to reduce transmission in schools 4/10

Dr Fauci has spoken eloquently of the need to vaccinate children and the potential unknown long term impact of acute covid in both adults and children 5/10

Many EU & other countries are doing a version of "Vaccine Plus" with high coverage of vaccination in the over 12s plus some additional public health protections and doing an OK job of getting covid under control. 6/10

I (& others) have consistently advocated for safer schools, safer workspaces, vaccination, testing and tracing, and highlighted the burden of acute covid on hospitals (and patients!), of long covid later and the unequal impact on ethnic minority and deprived communities. 7/10

The UK is seeing ~1000 Covid hosp admissions a day & 1000 Covid deaths a week. Severe disease, deaths & long covid are higher & vax lower in deprived communities.
We've had ~3 million confirmed infections since 1 May. If even *just 5%* get long covid, that's 150K new people. 8/10

The way people try to justify high case numbers are to say long covid isn't an issue, that it doesn't matter if kids get covid and that those severely ill and dying are mainly older or vulnerable.

I say, not good enough. We CAN do better. The choice is NOT this or lockdown.

Independent SAGE have today released a nine point plan for winter that to get cases down *and* keep the economy open.
independentsage.org/wp-content/upl…

As @martinmckee wrote, the govt seem to have given up on their public health duty.
blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/09/14…

Let's demand better. 10/10